Journal of Religion & Film - DigitalCommons@UNO

Journal of Religion & Film

Volume 24                                                                                          Article 22
Issue 1 April 2020

January 2020

The Social Dilemma
Jodi McDavid
Cape Breton University, jodi@mcdavidbrodie.com

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Recommended Citation
McDavid, Jodi (2020) "The Social Dilemma," Journal of Religion & Film: Vol. 24 : Iss. 1 , Article 22.
Available at: https://digitalcommons.unomaha.edu/jrf/vol24/iss1/22

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The Social Dilemma

Abstract
This is a film review of The Social Dilemma (2020) directed by Jeff Orlowski.

Keywords
Social Media, Artificial Intelligence, Advertising

Author Notes
Jodi McDavid is an instructor in folklore and gender and women's studies at Cape Breton University.

This sundance film festival review is available in Journal of Religion & Film: https://digitalcommons.unomaha.edu/jrf/
                                                                                                         vol24/iss1/22

McDavid: The Social Dilemma

                                   The Social Dilemma (2020) dir. Jeff Orlowski

                 The Social Dilemma is a documentary which interviews executives and programmers who

          left social media sites such as Pinterest, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter for ethical reasons. It

          treads the familiar ground that you might expect about the addictiveness of social media, however,

          it does give in-depth information about how the artificial intelligence works.

                 Tristan Harris, co-founder of the Centre for Humane Technology and previous Google

          employee, figures prominently in the film. He has spoken widely on the topic of attention and how,

          what companies are paying for, is user attention. Social media is designed to exploit what these

          reformers call human weakness. Other media that exploit human weakness have been policed—

          the common example is Saturday morning cartoons, where the type of advertisers were

          regulated—but social media has not been regulated in this way.

                 Experts discuss how by using their AI, videos are recommended based on your previous

          interactions on a site (such as YouTube) and how it builds a profile of what you may be interested

Published by DigitalCommons@UNO, 2020                                                                          1

Journal of Religion & Film, Vol. 24 [2020], Iss. 1, Art. 22

           in or consider. For example, a person interested in flat earth videos may receive other

           recommendations about conspiracy theories, fake news, anti-vaccination movements, and chem

           trails. This is how Pizzagate happened, because information was circulating about a conspiracy

           theory that a pizza parlour was using cheese pizza (CP) as a codeword for child pornography, and

           that children were held hostage in a pizzeria. A man who was influenced by these social media

           hoaxes entered the pizzeria where this was supposedly happening, armed, with the goal of freeing

           the children held there.

                   Another example is given of how in Myanmar, Facebook was used to incite violence and

           hate speech and played a strong role in a genocide. But another concern is how, in many countries,

           Facebook and other social media sites can create polarization, because a watched item leads to

           another similar item and excludes alternate opinions, as advertisers pay for your attention and ad

           impressions. Therefore, showing you content like that which you have already seen and liked or

           watched (which the site records) keeps you online longer. At the same time, it may drive you into

           more and more narrow viewpoints and exclude any opinions which challenge your own. The film

           makes it very clear that it can be easy to radicalize people because of the way the AI operates.

                   The documentary could provide some great opportunities to talk about these issues,

           especially in an inter-generational situation, as it steps beyond simply critiquing social media and

           into some concrete contexts that show that it is not simply addictive, but actively dangerous. One

           surprising fact is that the AI largely acts on its own, and so videos and content is shown to users

           regardless of its negative impact or verity.

                   On the negative side, the documentary employs a couple of technical forms which do not

           really add to the argument, although I suppose they may help middle and high school students

           understand the content better. These are a dramatic script which shows a family struggling with

https://digitalcommons.unomaha.edu/jrf/vol24/iss1/22                                                              2

McDavid: The Social Dilemma

          phone usage, and another portion which shows one member of this family as an avatar in the

          internet. Regardless, the content is useful, the experts are knowledgeable, and their message is

          clear: they want social media to be more ethically designed, and fear the impact on society if things

          continue the way they are.

Published by DigitalCommons@UNO, 2020                                                                             3